By My Hand
by Moiranna
Summary: Standing at the brink between life and death Dante found himself with an unexpected visitor. He knew why that wrongness had screamed at him all along. This was not the way things were supposed to end.


**Author:** Moiranna  
 **Title:** By my hand **  
** **Theme** : #41 – Completion  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Realm:** Devil May Cry  
 **Pairing:** N/A  
 **Characters:** Dante, Vergil  
 **Genre:** tragedy, family  
 **Warnings:** Blood, death  
 **Word-count** : 966  
 **Summary:** Standing at the brink between life and death Dante found himself with an unexpected visitor. He knew why that wrongness had screamed at him all along. This was not the way things were supposed to end.  
 **Notes:** Sparked by a dream I had after a conversation with Elusivos.

* * *

"You're an idiot."

The words were hissed in Dante's ear. Eyelids flickering open, but the movement was sluggish and drowsy, lids feeling as if they had weights on them and Dante just wanted to go back to sleep again. Everything hurt. He could vaguely recall the fight, claws tearing through skin like it had been butter that had sat out in the sun for too long. Blood everywhere, but he only remembered laughing and charging further ahead against his opponents.

There had been something about those claws. _Poison_ , something whispered at him, keeping the demonic healing Dante relied on to survive from kicking in, slowly leeching his life away, the truest of reds continuing to flow and stain the ground until the earth came crashing down towards him.

Cerulean eyes closed, stillness just within reach, yet hesitating at the precipice. This was wrong. Not the way it was supposed to happen. A breath. Then another. Instincts clawing at him, not right not right _not right_.

How he woke up in his own bed he had no idea, the world felt as if it had been turned upside down and every breath he drew was torturous. Somehow his eyes cracked open, but he could still feel the dregs of poison trying to leech away at his life. What startled him more was that he wasn't alone, a painfully familiar blue coat hanging over his bedside chair, and had he been in a different mood he would have been amused and somewhat disturbed by the almost rumpled way Vergil's hair fell in, as if he'd run hands through it so many times that it had lost the regular neatness.

Eyes tracing the restless pacing of his identical frame, from the door then five steps over to the drawer, whisper-close to the bed and then back again to the door. The elder sibling was muttering something under his breath and the red cambion had the distinct feeling of had something to do with him being a careless fool. Dimly he found it strange that the blue-clad twin would do this, he couldn't grasp that his twin was in his bedroom looking over him as if he actually worried. Focusing, though it was hard since he was so tired, he tried to make sense of the words, thinking that he heard 'tried to steal _my_ kill', but Vergil's back was turned at the time and the injured sibling too exhausted to process the words.

Dante moved his right hand to grasp at the other's wrist as he passed by the bed, but the movement caused pain to sear through his body as if lightning as struck him. A sharp groan left him and the motion was aborted, back bowing in pain which only triggered further pain.

At once the pacing stopped and the elder twin returned to his side, half-gloved hands clenched on top of the bloodied sheets, just studying him as Dante took pained breaths to try to calm down.

"Come to finish me off?" The half glazed over look in Dante's eyes made him think that he saw the elder twin frown with disapproval.

"When I come for you, you will know it." Tone sharp as if he was using words as an alternate version for Yamato, which was curiously absent.

The devil-hunter blinked several times, thoroughly puzzled. If Vergil meant to kill him, why hadn't he just finished the job? It would be so easy now, hell, even just a pillow over his face would probably do the trick. Mind working slow, as if he was wading through mud there still was something at the back of his head that screamed that this was _not right_.

"The only one who is allowed to kill you, Dante, is I. Nobody else." That voice in his head murmured its approval.

"I'm the only one who can kill you," Dante echoed, seeing something flicker by in cerulean hues that might have been assent, might have been surprise. A half-gloved hand came to rest next to his head on the pillow, but the younger twin still could see the fury that lurked in Vergil's very core.

"I don't care who you fight, if you're sloppy enough to get yourself injured with that foolish overconfidence of yours," Vergil continued with a sneer, "I'll laugh at you for it, but your death is _mine_. Anyone stealing it from me will be hunted down." Dimly Dante could see the flicker of gold at Vergil's throat, his half of the perfect amulet just barely visible, that symbol of two parts of a whole much like they were. Yes. Despite their differencies, despite the hatred and grudges, they were the only ones who were allowed to deal that fatal blow to the other. Finally understanding why that wrongness had been so dominant Dante relaxed back onto the pillows, sweat-matted hair stinging in his eyes.

"Sleep." Words soft, that fevered rage matted down as the message had been received and understood. The younger son of Sparda obeyed, slipping into the land of Morpheus, but he could almost feel the whisper-light press of lips against his scalp.

It wasn't until days later when Dante finally was able to leave his bed and stumbled down into the shop, absentmindedly running a hand along the Sparda sword as he passed by it in his search for anything to drink, turning around to find Nero's shaggy mop of hair as the young man lay passed out on his couch that the strangeness of the previous interaction finally hit Dante square in the chest.

Vergil had been dead for years. Slain by his own hand.

Still he knew with every fibre in his being. Vergil would be the one who killed him. The circle once more would be complete.


End file.
